Hey guys!
After years of thinking about using Warmoth to build my own bass, I've finally decided to start
I have pretty much everything figured out, but I though it would be a good idea to share my thoughts and questions here anyways hehe.
The only thing I'm really uncertain of is wood choices since I'm kinda green on that one. I've modded a lot of basses over the years (paint jobs, electronics, added extra pickups etc), but never really made something myself.
My three main basses right now is a Fender Precision (with a second P pickup in the bridge position), a G&L L-2000 and a Squier Deluxe 5 Jazz. But I'm almost only using the P since the added pickup really makes it versatile enough for most of the music I play. So my plan was to make a bass I can use for almost anything.
What I want to do is make a reverse five string jazz bass, as I've always fancied the look of the 60's guitars and basses like Danelectro, Tokai, Mosrite etc. And although I only use the E to G strings 99% percent of the time, I like having a low B for that occasional low note.
For the neck my plan was to use wenge for the neck and ziricote for the fingerboard, since I LOVE the look of ziricote. Is that a good mix in terms of sound and weight?
Do I need to counter it with a heavy body wood, both in terms of overall sould balance and neck dive (I'm not to skilled on the whole wood combination->tone thing)?
Note that I'm not really concerned about total weight as much as a good balance.
And how much setup is required when I get it?
I know I have to file the nut myself, but do I need to get the frets leveled also? Because in that case I should add a luthier post to the budget
As for the electronics I have a few thoughs:
I want to go with a passive bass, as I love the simplicity of the passive stuff (and I'm constantly forgetting the jack in the G&L and Squier after band rehearsal ).
I was thinking about two Seymour Duncan MM pickups in the bridge and middle position and hook them up to a series/parallel switch (or one for each pickup), a master volume + tone and a 3-way pickup switch.
I also want a neck pup on a separate circuit with it's own volum/tone (like the rhythm/lead switch on Jaguars. I own one and I love the versatility). Maybe something like EMG or a similar soapbar that will give me a nice round tone.
The point being that I want to be able to go from nice round sounds to bridge-and-middle-pickup-full-on-pick-attack-grind with the flick of a switch.
Is this doable? I think I can manage to wire it up, but would it be a bad idea in terms of signal loss to put that many cables and switches in a passive bass?
As you can probably see I'm not the most experienced builder out there, but I'm trying to learn, and I do feel it's important to make the best of it when I finally decide to make a custom bass.
- Andreas
After years of thinking about using Warmoth to build my own bass, I've finally decided to start
I have pretty much everything figured out, but I though it would be a good idea to share my thoughts and questions here anyways hehe.
The only thing I'm really uncertain of is wood choices since I'm kinda green on that one. I've modded a lot of basses over the years (paint jobs, electronics, added extra pickups etc), but never really made something myself.
My three main basses right now is a Fender Precision (with a second P pickup in the bridge position), a G&L L-2000 and a Squier Deluxe 5 Jazz. But I'm almost only using the P since the added pickup really makes it versatile enough for most of the music I play. So my plan was to make a bass I can use for almost anything.
What I want to do is make a reverse five string jazz bass, as I've always fancied the look of the 60's guitars and basses like Danelectro, Tokai, Mosrite etc. And although I only use the E to G strings 99% percent of the time, I like having a low B for that occasional low note.
For the neck my plan was to use wenge for the neck and ziricote for the fingerboard, since I LOVE the look of ziricote. Is that a good mix in terms of sound and weight?
Do I need to counter it with a heavy body wood, both in terms of overall sould balance and neck dive (I'm not to skilled on the whole wood combination->tone thing)?
Note that I'm not really concerned about total weight as much as a good balance.
And how much setup is required when I get it?
I know I have to file the nut myself, but do I need to get the frets leveled also? Because in that case I should add a luthier post to the budget
As for the electronics I have a few thoughs:
I want to go with a passive bass, as I love the simplicity of the passive stuff (and I'm constantly forgetting the jack in the G&L and Squier after band rehearsal ).
I was thinking about two Seymour Duncan MM pickups in the bridge and middle position and hook them up to a series/parallel switch (or one for each pickup), a master volume + tone and a 3-way pickup switch.
I also want a neck pup on a separate circuit with it's own volum/tone (like the rhythm/lead switch on Jaguars. I own one and I love the versatility). Maybe something like EMG or a similar soapbar that will give me a nice round tone.
The point being that I want to be able to go from nice round sounds to bridge-and-middle-pickup-full-on-pick-attack-grind with the flick of a switch.
Is this doable? I think I can manage to wire it up, but would it be a bad idea in terms of signal loss to put that many cables and switches in a passive bass?
As you can probably see I'm not the most experienced builder out there, but I'm trying to learn, and I do feel it's important to make the best of it when I finally decide to make a custom bass.
- Andreas